December 15th 2011

So close!  Just a few more days and we'll be on holiday until the new year.


I wanted to share a little something, (exciting!), that I worked on recently with Nikole Herriott of Herriott Grace.  We came up with a design together that I illustrated for her new holiday wrapping paper, available in their shop shortly!  It was silkscreened by Kid Icarus here in Toronto, and will be available in green or gold on white.    Also, if you get the chance, check out their website!  It's beautiful!


I've also been working on four new illustrations for the New York Times Magazine, which I'm very excited to share.  Unfortunately, I won't be able to post them online until after Christmas, but I will when I'm back in the studio!

December 5th 2011

Happy December, everyone!


The last few weeks before the holidays is always a super busy time, and I'm just finishing up some last minute projects before we can take off for a vacation.  Chris and I will be spending the holidays with family, and I've really been looking forward to going up north, snowshoeing playing in the snow, and sitting in front of the fire with hot chocolate.  So relaxing!


In the past couple of months I've finished up some fun assignments with great clients.  Included in those jobs was one that was just published this morning.  I was asked to illustrate the background city blocks of buildings in Fatbox Inc.'s Missed Connector App video, which can be viewed here.  They look pretty teeny-tiny in the video, so I've attached a larger image of some of the elements pieced together on one city block, below.

Also, the Kid Icarus 2012 Art Calendar that I'd mentioned in my previous post is now available!  I saw it in person over the weekend, and the collection of work in the calendar is pretty fantastic, (and printed beautifully, too!).

There are still a few things in the works that I won't be able to post about until after the holidays, but I look forward to it in the New Year!

November 26th 2011

This is just a quick update to let you know about a project I worked on recently with Kid Icarus. I've worked with them quite a bit in the past, and they asked if I'd be part of their limited edition silkscreen 2012 calendar.  Each page has been designed by a different artist, then silkscreened and bound by Mike and Bianca.  They're releasing it at their Handmade Holiday craft show on December 3rd.  For more information, visit the site.

November 9th 2011

It's up!

The snowman that I mentioned in my last post that I designed for the TORONTOLAND charity for Starlight Children's Charity is now on display at Cambell House Museum on the corner of Queen Street West and University Avenue.

I had a little errand to run today, and decided to head out and see it for myself!  I'm still planning a trip around the city to see all of them when they're all up.

If you're in the city, and happen to be passing by any of these snowmen, take a photo with your phone and email it to me(at)tosnowman.com or text it to 647TAGSNOW, and the city will donate $2 to the charity for each photo they receive.

Thanks again to Lunch, Narwhal Art Projects and Toronto Tourism for creating such a great project.  It was great to be a part of this with all of the other artists involved.

November 3rd, 2011

Happy November, everyone!


I hope those of you in the north-eastern States have dug out of the snowbanks and are keeping nice and warm.  Strangely, it's been unseasonably warm for the beginning of November here in Toronto.  Though I'm sure many don't want to hear it, I'm really looking forward to the snow...


I know, I know.  But it means being cozy inside with hot cider and cocoa, wooly blankets and short, dark days.  By the end of the winter I'm happy for spring, but I do love a good winter's day.


One reason I'm posting today is to let you know that starting today, and until the end of December, I've discounted two silkscreen prints in my shop by 15%.  I wanted to give enough time for people to order and have their prints shipped for the holidays.  The prints are the Dalahäst Blå and Like A Bear Knitting silkscreen prints, (seen above).  If you're interested in ordering and need a shipping quote, please contact me before placing your order.


I also wanted let you in on a project I recently worked on with Toronto Tourism, Narwhal Art Projects and Lunch; the giant snowmen that you may have seen popping up all over the city.


During November and December this year, the city has commissioned artist-designed 8-foot-tall snowmen to be placed around the city.  The snowmen were created to raise funds for the Starlight Children's Foundation Canada.  Each time someone takes a photo with a snowman and either texts, emails or tweets about it, the city will donate $2 to the Foundation.  Their hopes are to raise $50,000 for the charity.  Sixteen artists came up with designs, including myself.  There are a couple of snowmen up currently, including Team Macho's design in the Distillery District, Travis Lampe's in the Delta Chelsea Hotel, and Mark Gervais' snowman seen at the CN Tower.  When mine goes up, I'll be sure and post photos!


To view the TORONTOLAND website, (which is pretty fantastic), click through the link here.

October 23rd 2011

This will be a quick one!


Since I didn't post anything other than the cover of Grand-Remous in the other day's post, I wanted to show a couple of my favorites.

If you're at all familiar, (and who isn't, really), with this past spring's Royal Wedding, you may recognize the pageant outfits on these two rex cats.

I used one Nikole Herriott's father's beautiful handmade spoons as reference for the one above.

October 22nd 2011

I realized a few days ago that every time you open the page for my blog, music starts up from a video I'd linked.  I think, (so that I'm not annoying readers), I'm going to take the video down, but post a link to it instead.  It's such a pretty video, but I would hate for it to detract readers from visiting!


That said, I wanted to post a bit more work that's been published recently.


This past week I received a copy of University Affairs Magazine with an illustration I did of a street scene set in Montréal in 1911.  It was a tough one to do!  That's a lot of (architectural, eep!) detail!  (Click on the image to see it a little more clearly).

I also did another job for The New York Times; this time for the Dining In section of the paper.  It was so much fun!  Sometimes I feel like I get jobs that were sort of made for me, and this was one of them!  I was asked to illustrate the top of a table; to paint some of the dishes that were rendered beautifully in the article.  It was about a dinner that the author, Mimi Sheraton, had had back in 1953 on a trip to Denmark.  I love Scandinavian food and design, so this was a lot of fun to do!

Here is a link to the original article in the paper.


I'm working on some other things, and will have more work to show shortly.  Until then!

October 20th 2011

Good news!  I have copies of Grand-Remous, the children's book I worked on with Mélanie Tellier this past summer.  Mélanie is the publisher that I did our previous book, Le Géranium, with, and I was so excited when she asked me to work with her on another project.


Chris and I went to Montréal last week for the fall book launch party for Les Éditions Marchand de Feuilles and Bourgeon, where I picked up a few copies of the new book.  I'm so excited to have finished up another project with this publisher, and I'm so happy with the way it turned out!


I just did a draw for a free copy of the book, and wanted to congratulate Dawn Petticrew!  Thanks to all of those who entered the draw.


I've uploaded all of the images from the book to my website, and you can view the work here.  I will have a few copies of the book available online, and will order more when the book is  officially released mid-November.  You can order your copy of the book here.


Thanks to all of those who supported me during such a busy period this summer, as well as Mélanie and her staff for having such faith in my work!


I'll be back again tomorrow to add more new work to the blog!

September 30th 2011

It's the last day of September, (already!), and I have a little bit of news.  Actually, a big piece of news!


It's only about one more month until the release of my next illustrated children's book, Grand-Remous, with Mélanie Tellier and publisher Bourgeon.  The website has a preview of the cover of the book that I wanted to share (above).


In a week I'll be heading to Montréal for the release party for the publisher's fall editions, so I'll finally get to see the book fresh from the presses!  I'm even more excited about the release of this book than I was for the last, if that's even possible.


When I return home, I'll have a giveaway for one of the first copies of the book that I'll send out on the release date.  To enter for a copy, please go to my Facebook page post and leave a comment!  I'll do a draw and mail out a copy at the beginning of November to the lucky recipient!

September 23rd 2011

{ VIDEO }


I've been doing a lot of image reference for tilt-shift photography, (it's so simple, but it still baffles me!  Everything looks so tiny!).


In the process, I stumbled upon some really pretty videos, and this just happens to be one of my favorites.  It's by a film maker named Felix Holderer from Freiburg, Germany.  It really does look like a pretty little snowglobe!


{ * It was brought to my attention after posting this video that it began playing every time the page blog page was opened, so I've taken the video down and replaced it with a link to the video.  It's a beautiful video, so I hope you'll click through and watch it!  And my apologies for the soundtrack on the blog.  Oops. }

September 19th 2011

My hand is cramped.  I spent the three days following our Boston trip catching up on some work.  I had a fairly rushed job that I finished up late last night, that I can't wait to share.  It was a pretty big job, and I'm so happy with the results.  I don't believe it'll be published until November, so I'll have to post it when it becomes available.

In the meantime, I wanted to post a couple of images that I'm completely in love with.  Back in August, Chris' Dad gave me a book; The Paper Garden, for my birthday.  I haven't had a chance to read through very far, but have flipped through the pages to look at the incredible images scattered throughout the book.  It's about a woman named Mary Delany, an English aristocrat, who didn't begin her life's work, cutting gorgeously intricate botanical illustrations from paper, until the age of 72.  Her work is incredibly deft and accurate, and can still be found at the British Museum to this day.  (This is surprising, because she created them during the 18th century, and didn't take care to properly archive her works; delicately crafted out of hand-dyed onion/ tissue papers).


I'm always appreciative of work that is incredibly detailed, so her work really stands out to me.  I love her use of deep, ink-black backgrounds.  They make her work look so rich.

September 17th 2011

Here are the illustrations I did, published this week in The New York Times Magazine Education Issue.  This was such a fun job to do!  I was asked to do a small series of paintings from an article that included short stories about personal school experiences written by Michael Bloomberg, Wes Anderson and others.  You can read the article here.

I got the assignment while I was out at a Blue Jays game with Chris and some friends, then to add to the excitement of the night; we ended up on the JumboTron!

Chris and I just got back from a trip to Boston.  It was a great trip away, (we both needed a little break from things), and I'll be sure and post photos when I get my film developed.  It was an even more beautiful city than I'd imagined.  I'd love to go back some time.  Our next big trip will probably be to Iceland in the spring!  I want to start planning already!

September 7th 2011

Last month I was asked by Brooklyn Magazine to illustrate in the style of Adolphe Millot three full pages of the species of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. I've always wanted to do a scientific botanical illustration, so I was very excited to work on it. They sent me a list, which you can view here, of the species to be included. Sharks, pythons, and lions? Really!?

August 29th 2011

We went to the CNE for the first time this year! I can't believe it's taken me this long to experience it. It was a lot more fun than I'd expected! There was tons of terrible, (amazing), food there, (including burgers made with Krispy Kreme donuts for buns and tacos in a bag), one of my favorite rides; the swing ride, (above), and on our way out of the park, a man being blown out of a cannon. What a great day!

August 27th 2011

I have a couple of exciting projects to post about today!

I recently did some illustrations for Nikole Herriott of Herriott Grace. She wanted to post a recipe on her blog, Forty Sixth at Grace, and asked that I paint some instructional illustrations, as well as the ingredients needed for the recipe, (cloud shaped ice cream sandwiches!). It was so much fun! You can find her blog post here, with a downloadable PDF of the recipe.

Also, over the past month I've done a few illustrations for The New York Times Magazine!

They were for the "Lives" op-ed column, on the back page of the magazine. The first story I was asked to illustrate was for an article titled "The Secret Life of a Rock Dad". It was written by Clay Tarver, previously of a 90's band called "Chavez", and his struggles with becoming a "rock dad".

The second was for this week's issue, and was titled "The Letting Go", written by Siddhartha Mukherjee, and is a beautifully written essay on the differences between the death rituals of India and North America. Below is pictured the illustration I did for it, of a ganga, or Indian funeral boat.

August 9th 2011

Success.

Now, that looks better. And so clean! I'm sure it won't last long. It is a studio after all. But I'm so glad I set aside the time to fix this room up.

I just finished a (very exciting!!) new job yesterday, and I can't wait to share it. I think I'll be able to by Thursday or Friday. Yay!

August 8th 2011

In dire need of some cleaning and organizing, I took some time out this weekend to fix up our studio room a little bit. Okay, a lot. This is what it looked like when Anabela came by for a studio visit last summer:

And some progress after a weekend of painting and purging:

We needed it to be a little brighter, so Chris and I found a nice bright white to paint the walls. We're putting in some new shelves and getting rid of a lot of unneeded things. It's still in a state of upheaval, and looks a little depressing really, but hopefully by tomorrow I'll have a proper work area again. (The work I have to do today may have to be done at our kitchen table instead).

I'll post a couple of photos when it's finally put back together again! It'll probably be the best looking it has ever and will ever be.

August 2nd 2011

Happy August, everyone. To all of my Canadian friends, I hope you had a nice holiday weekend!


I spent mine up north with family at my parent's house. Aside from being eaten by bugs, it was a beautiful weekend, and I'm back and ready to get back to work again.


It was a nice break after the last couple of busy months I've had. I'd taken a little bit of time off from blogging and posting photos to work hard on a children's book project for the same publisher as the last; Bourgeon. The work was sent off in time for me to take the weekend off and relax a little. It's scheduled for release in November! I can't wait. Above is a little preview of one of the paintings from the book. I used Dre as reference; can you tell? Anyway, I'll be sure and post all of the work on my website when the book's been released.

I'm sure everyone's seen this at some point online by now, but if not, check out the inaugural issue of Kinfolk Magazine. It's absolutely beautiful! I wasn't quick enough to get a copy, (they sold out immediately!), but will definitely be quicker next time! Luckily, you can browse the full issue online, here. Congratulations to Nikole Herriott and Tara O'Brady for their article "In Good Company: A weekday get-together for two", and Celine Kim for her beautiful photo of a cottage in Prince Edward Island on the farewell page of the magazine, as well as to all of the other talented contributors!

June 30, 2011

Yay Machos!

Recently, a filming crew from Reebok came by Team Macho's studio and did a video of them doing a collaborative painting of their friend Kirk Heron. (For the record, Kirk's been a muse on more than one occasion. He models their shirts on their online webshop, too!).

Anyway, here's a really nicely filmed and edited video of the boys painting and speaking a little about their work.

Another piece of exciting Team Macho news; they've created the most incredible giveaway.

During the month of July, they've decided to give five of their original pieces away, only you'll have to work for it. (Oh yeah, and be local, because it's a scavenger hunt!). They're posting clues, starting at 5pm EST as to the whereabouts of their first painting to be given away. Each piece will be wrapped up very well and hidden very, very well. If you're located in Toronto and would like a piece of Team Macho art of your very own, you'll have to follow their Tumblr and Twitter accounts for clues! Fun!

In the next day or two I plan to post a bit, (finally!), about our recent wedding. In the meantime, we got our photos back from our incredible friend/ photographer Celine Kim a couple of days ago, and I've posted a number of them up on my Flickr photostream, if you'd like a preview.

June 17th 2011

I've been staring at my palette for the past few weeks. Nearly every single day. It's always at my right, beside my elbow. And I don't usually think there's anything particularly beautiful about it; that is until you take away everything around it and focus on the little bits of light and colour.

It keeps me excited about all of the painting I have to do in the next little while!

I should take more photos of my desk while I'm working. I'll plan to do that in the next few days or so and post it to show you what a mess it is!

June 1st 2011

Happy June, everyone!

The weather here in Toronto is gorgeous right now, so it's difficult to sit at my desk and listen to the sounds of the school kids out the window playing and the birds singing and not run outside to frolic a little.

But I have a fun project to work on, so that makes it worthwhile. I wish I could show you what I'm working on! But it will have to wait a couple of months. I can't wait.

A friend posted a link to this video on Twitter earlier this afternoon. It's of Mike and Bianca, the couple behind print studio Kid Icarus, and when I watched it, I realized that my Fig Newton print in all it's print stages is at the very beginning! Fun! It's a beautifully made video, filmed by Stillmotion, and so nice to see the wonderfully creative couple talking about their work. (They're the best!). Enjoy!

kid icarus // the screen printing duo from stillmotion on Vimeo.